[1] Naz Hamid • [2]Journal • [3]Links • [4]Photos • [5]About • [8]Million-Mile Tech Durability is the ultimate feature. I [9]wrote in October last year that I wouldn’t upgrade my iPhone 14 Pro. That’s also not quite true. I did upgrade my phone — with a [10]new battery and leather case. This isn’t what people typically think of when they say they upgraded their phone. They think of an entirely new phone. New model. Newer, bigger, better, faster. This cycle drives sales across cars, furniture, cameras, clothes, and almost everything. A new reason to replace what already works. Objectively looking at my 14 Pro reveals that it’s a modern marvel, still, after 3 years. Which in technology can feel like an eon, supposedly. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Last week, [11]Jen and I were driving south on N. State Route 89A. This is a picturesque 23-mile route that descends from 7,000 feet in Flagstaff, Arizona to 4,300 feet in Sedona through switchbacks and hairpin turns. As we passed Slide Rock State Park, we felt a throbbing below our feet in the car. We own an 18-year-old vehicle. We bought it used 4 years ago with 175,000 miles on the clock. It is a Lexus 4×4, or rather, a Toyota under the hood. The venerable [12]2UZ-FE engine is known as a “million-mile engine” if you take care of it. I bought it knowing that Toyota built a vehicle to last. I bought it knowing that if we took care of this vehicle, it would take care of us. This vehicle has fueled many of [13]our adventures and explorations in the American West. I know it deeply. When it sounds or feels off, I know something is awry. The shuddering vibration beneath our feet continued as we descended. We rolled down the windows and heard what sounded like rattling aluminum cans. Ugh, no. Jen eased onto a gravel pullout and I did a visual and hand-feel inspection. I pushed on pieces I’ve bolted on and worked on. Everything seemed tight. But I knew someone could fix this. Toyota makes their cars to be serviceable. They make their cars to be durable. We found a park and I rolled out a makeshift mechanic tarp, got under the rig, and started torquing bolts. No shuddering beneath our feet but the rattling cans are still there. We found a highly-rated auto shop and we left the vehicle with them. The passenger-side wheel bearing had failed (a nicer term than exploded). They'll replace the bearing along with the other side — standard practice. I approved the work. The next day the work was finished and we’re back to it. This car has rolled over 200,000 miles, and I hope to take it to 300,000. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ My iPhone 14 Pro is still the best smartphone I could need. I got it with 512GB of storage to anticipate this future: where maintenance comes down to battery or screen. I can get those replaced. The battery was $99. A small price to pay for a $1,299 device that has been paid off for over a year. The original Apple leather case had lived a long and worthy life, protecting my phone from drops, dented corners, and a spider-webbed display. When the bottom edge finally broke off, I replaced it with a [14]Mujjo leather case. It’s lovely. I expect to get another 3 years with it. A deeper appreciation and intimacy grows as you hold onto something longer and longer. There’s a point at which it evolves from the shiny new thing into a tool you love. You’ve cultivated a lopsided fondness for a material possession that’s now a well-worn friend. May all of the things we care for outlive us. Oct 20 2025 ⋅ [15]technology Related • [16] A Simple Sophistication ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Mar 22 2004 Reductionism. • [17] The New Design ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ May 20 2013 What those new to the field should know, and how we can help. • [18] I Don't Have Facebook ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Jan 14 2015 Yep. [19]Prev The Hunt [20]Next The Weeks I write an occasional newsletter called Weightshifting. It was originally comprised of design, culture, and travel notes, morphed into [21]two seasons of overland travel, and has now returned to its original ideal of observations in the field. You can subscribe below. Email address [22][ ] [23][Subscribe] [logotype] © 2000 - 2025 Naz Hamid. Get some RSS feeds: [24]Journal, [25]Links or [26]Photos. You can email me at my [27]first name at this domain. 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